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A Few Clouds Enterprise soars over Long Island's south shore
On its way into John F. Kennedy International Airport and ultimately to the Intrepid Sea, Air and Space Museum, the retired NASA space shuttle Enterprise flew over Long Beach and other Long Island communities Friday morning.
Atop a modified 747 jumbo jet which took off from Washington, D.C.’s Dulles International Airport earlier Friday, the shuttle completed a low altitude fly by that dazzled thousands of onlookers who lined the Hudson River and watched from office buildings and rooftops as it soared past the world-famous Manhattan skyline as far north as the Tappan Zee Bridge and circled back above the Statue of Liberty before landing safely at Kennedy, where it was met by NASA dignitaries, local schoolchildren and actor Leonard Nimoy.
Nimoy played Spock on the 1960s science fiction television series, and several of the “Star Trek” movies that followed. Original plans to name the shuttle “The Constitution,” were changed after President Gerald Ford ordered it to be named after the popular show’s fictional star ship Enterprise, following a letter-writing campaign by fans of the series.
The shuttle Enterprise, which was a prototype and test orbiter that never flew into space, will next travel by barge to the Intrepid, where it is expected to go on display in mid-July.
